Hardware Discussion General

I've been putting some serious thought towards building a custom watercooling loop in my current chassis... It's got ample space for radiators, and I bet it'd make a kickass rig for folding@home if I put both my 5700XTs in waterblocks. But like, wouldn't that mean spending a titanic amount of cash? I guess that card will be obsolete by then, so I could put it in a server downstairs... >~<

Apart from that, I'm also thinking about making my own router via pfSense, some network adapters, and an ATX board I have laying around downstairs. Might be fun to get the flying pancake off the ground again, heh. ^~^

17 days later
Loko wrote

I really need to get some more storage soon. I've been in the red on all my drives except my boot drive.

Do you have a redundant array of some sort?

I'm gonna be out of action for a little while, some parts of my PC are being dated despite having served beyond their limits since the late 2000's and never died out. When I get back mid-June in time for my 24th year, my PC would wake itself up more lively than ever and on the Windows 10.

malmon wrote
Loko wrote

I really need to get some more storage soon. I've been in the red on all my drives except my boot drive.

Do you have a redundant array of some sort?

Backup storage is expensive, though!

shuffles aside the $170 she spent on RGB fan frames >~>'

7 days later

Regarding home audio equipment: Anybody know a good pair of bookshelf speakers, or preferably a whole brand, that have a flat soundcurve and a reasonable price-to-articulateness ratio? I want to be able to appreciate every note of a song. Right now, Wharfdale's at the top of my shortlist with their Diamond 225, but I'm open to suggestions.

Backlash wrote

Regarding home audio equipment: Anybody know a good pair of bookshelf speakers, or preferably a whole brand, that have a flat soundcurve and a reasonable price-to-articulateness ratio? I want to be able to appreciate every note of a song. Right now, Wharfdale's at the top of my shortlist with their Diamond 225, but I'm open to suggestions.

In case you haven't heard the term, try looking for "studio monitors" if you're after a flat frequency response ^_^

Loko wrote

I'm planning on doing a shell swap with my old 3DS. Why not? It'll keep me busy.

Oh cool! I did one on my PS Vita. Unfortunately only the front, since the back never arrived >.> Still looks pretty cool with the black and red though, so it's not too bad ^~^

Loko wrote

I'm planning on doing a shell swap with my old 3DS. Why not? It'll keep me busy.

Oh cool! I did one on my PS Vita. Unfortunately only the front, since the back never arrived >.> Still looks pretty cool with the black and red though, so it's not too bad ^~^

Loko wrote
malmon wrote
Loko wrote

I'm planning on doing a shell swap with my old 3DS. Why not? It'll keep me busy.

Oh cool! I did one on my PS Vita. Unfortunately only the front, since the back never arrived >.> Still looks pretty cool with the black and red though, so it's not too bad ^~^

Yeah, I'm pretty stoked. However the last time I popped it open, I ended up stripping some of the screws, so I ordered a proper kit for that stuff.

Eh, yeah, it's annoying how every manufacturer uses some fancy screw nowadays.

Loko wrote
malmon wrote
Loko wrote
malmon wrote
Loko wrote

I'm planning on doing a shell swap with my old 3DS. Why not? It'll keep me busy.

Oh cool! I did one on my PS Vita. Unfortunately only the front, since the back never arrived >.> Still looks pretty cool with the black and red though, so it's not too bad ^~^

Yeah, I'm pretty stoked. However the last time I popped it open, I ended up stripping some of the screws, so I ordered a proper kit for that stuff.

Eh, yeah, it's annoying how every manufacturer uses some fancy screw nowadays.

Oh no, they were Philips screws, they were just painfully weak

My kit arrived so once my shell arrives I shouldn't have the same issue

Oh, that's odd. Philips are generally pretty good, unless you use a screwdriver of the wrong size~

2 months later

Went and forgot both PINs for my OpenPGP card, just as I was gonna get some use out of it for the first time 😐

(Not strictly hardware, but I didn't feel like this warranted its own thread ^_^')

6 days later

Ahhh, my combo battlestation/home theater is finally coming together! Now all's I've gotta do is pretty it up. ^~^

On that note, I rather like how Tech Jesus referred to the Enthoo Pro 2 as looking "like an appliance". He found that aspect appealing, and I do too. One can find all kinds of open loops and RGB adornments these days, but I've always reckoned a computer is best regarded as a silent and powerful machine that's either hidden away, or tastefully integrated into a room. I'm gonna see if I can match my PC's RGB lighting to the VFDs on my early 90's CD player.

Image no longer available

Backlash wrote

my early 90's CD player

It's a beautiful thing, by the way. A Sony CDP-515, top-of-the-line unit from '91. It even came with the remote!

Sound is bright and clear, with all the detail you'd expect. It's also solidly-built; I've got a broken mid-90's receiver and an early 2000's Trinitron, and I've found both of them to have really janky buttons with minimal travel. But this one gets pushed nearly a millimeter, and affirms your decision with a rather tactile Ka-chunk!. Niiice.

One of the coolest parts is the volume adjustment. Instead of flashing a number on the VFD, that little knob on the right actually has a tiny motor that rotates it, and its tiny red LED flashes to let you know its moving. ^~^

Backlash wrote

Ahhh, my combo battlestation/home theater is finally coming together! Now all's I've gotta do is pretty it up. ^~^

On that note, I rather like how Tech Jesus referred to the Enthoo Pro 2 as looking "like an appliance". He found that aspect appealing, and I do too. One can find all kinds of open loops and RGB adornments these days, but I've always reckoned a computer is best regarded as a silent and powerful machine that's either hidden away, or tastefully integrated into a room. I'm gonna see if I can match my PC's RGB lighting to the VFDs on my early 90's CD player.

Image no longer available

Yeah, it may look nice enough to run, but mine's a mighty beast, a CM Storm that's running real good and can handle almost anything I can put onto to my machine, comes with real-time temperature tracking displayed in Celsius that changes by the second, animated red lights just above my RTX 2060. As a bonus, the video card is much more powerful whilst consuming less power, and as an added benefit, when the PC is turned off, I no longer have to be bothered by any inactive lights anymore when sleeping, it does a really good job for a few years and still kicking.

4 days later
LucianDreamer wrote
Backlash wrote

Ahhh, my combo battlestation/home theater is finally coming together! Now all's I've gotta do is pretty it up. ^~^

On that note, I rather like how Tech Jesus referred to the Enthoo Pro 2 as looking "like an appliance". He found that aspect appealing, and I do too. One can find all kinds of open loops and RGB adornments these days, but I've always reckoned a computer is best regarded as a silent and powerful machine that's either hidden away, or tastefully integrated into a room. I'm gonna see if I can match my PC's RGB lighting to the VFDs on my early 90's CD player.

Image no longer available

Yeah, it may look nice enough to run, but mine's a mighty beast, a CM Storm that's running real good and can handle almost anything I can put onto to my machine, comes with real-time temperature tracking displayed in Celsius that changes by the second, animated red lights just above my RTX 2060. As a bonus, the video card is much more powerful whilst consuming less power, and as an added benefit, when the PC is turned off, I no longer have to be bothered by any inactive lights anymore when sleeping, it does a really good job for a few years and still kicking.


Oh my gosh, that's amazing love! I've always adored retro cases like that, and especially the classic HAF X. There's just something timeless about those aggressive early-2010's "Gamer"-y aesthetics, from the piles of 5.25 inch bays, to the many strange but often forward-thinking plastic accessories they included in the box. I'm talkin' stuff like an anti-sag GPU riser, a partial power supply shroud, and even a duct for the side 200mm fan that you can swivel around to redirect air.

That last part may be unnecessary in a world of full panels of tempered glass, but I'd reckon it lives on in high-end towers with fans directly below the GPU. ^^

6 days later

I've been having some mixed thoughts lately about Steve's latest video... not with regard to its quality (which goes above and beyond, as usual), but to my personal build. I've currently got my AIO front-mounted with the tubes up, since a tube-down position would make them intersect the tail end of the GPU heatsink. But I also don't wanna mount it up top, since not only would it make the CPU run hotter, there's a decent chance that push-pull fans would obscure most of the board.

I reckon I got three options, in this case - pun intended: Either go for a side mount, which wrecks my cable management scheme, and diminishes airflow; try a top mount, which has the aforementioned disadvantages; or simply run the AIO till it fails, and then opt for custom cooling. The Liquid Freezer II comes cheap, at around $150 for even 360mm model, so I reckon that's not bad for three or four years.

2 months later

Build brand new Ryzen server to stream music and video off of throughout the whole house
Excited to finally have AM4 processors and USB 3, doubling throughput
Get word the Verizon tech is coming to install a new router the next day
Literally looks like some cheap Chinese air humidifier, has half the ports of the previous one
Run a wireless speed test
LAN file transfers top out at a quarter of what they were before

I'm gettin' real sick of your shit, Verizon...

Backlash wrote

Build brand new Ryzen server to stream music and video off of throughout the whole house
Excited to finally have AM4 processors and USB 3, doubling throughput
Get word the Verizon tech is coming to install a new router the next day
Literally looks like some cheap Chinese air humidifier, has half the ports of the previous one
Run a wireless speed test
LAN file transfers top out at a quarter of what they were before

I'm gettin' real sick of your shit, Verizon...

What on earth? Can't you just buy your own router and just use theirs as a modem?

malmon wrote
Backlash wrote

Build brand new Ryzen server to stream music and video off of throughout the whole house
Excited to finally have AM4 processors and USB 3, doubling throughput
Get word the Verizon tech is coming to install a new router the next day
Literally looks like some cheap Chinese air humidifier, has half the ports of the previous one
Run a wireless speed test
LAN file transfers top out at a quarter of what they were before

I'm gettin' real sick of your shit, Verizon...

What on earth? Can't you just buy your own router and just use theirs as a modem?

That's what I'm gonna do, aye. I've actually already got a router here that's infinitely better, a TP-Link Archer A7. and the only saving grace to this mess is that they replaced the faulty optical network terminal (equivalent to a modem) with one that should actually work. I'll get to it tonight... ^^'

12 days later

Heheheheheh! Hoo, boy, is AMD absolutely demolishing it these days! I figured we were gonna lapse into a comfy bipolar dynamic in both the CPU and GPU spaces, where AMD marketed more productivity users and mainstream gamers, while Nvidia and Shintel trended towards enthusiasts until, hey, I dunno, Samsung makes a 7nm node that doesn't suck?

But to think Team Red would completely uproot the 10900k with its lowest-spec Zen 3 processor at launch, and take the fight to Nvidia at the high-end [ That is~, assuming stockrooms are large enough and third-party benchmarks corroborate it~ ], man! Lisa Su is one tough sunuva bitch. Or... well, you get the idea.

One peculiar thing I've run into is a handful of people on Reddit who claim to have bought a bunch of AMD stock on the cheap back during the financial crisis back in '08. Gotta say, I can't help but envy 'em just that tiny bit.

Image no longer available[/img]

4 days later
Loko wrote
Backlash wrote

Heheheheheh! Hoo, boy, is AMD absolutely demolishing it these days! I figured we were gonna lapse into a comfy bipolar dynamic in both the CPU and GPU spaces, where AMD marketed more productivity users and mainstream gamers, while Nvidia and Shintel trended towards enthusiasts until, hey, I dunno, Samsung makes a 7nm node that doesn't suck?

But to think Team Red would completely uproot the 10900k with its lowest-spec Zen 3 processor at launch, and take the fight to Nvidia at the high-end [ That is~, assuming stockrooms are large enough and third-party benchmarks corroborate it~ ], man! Lisa Su is one tough sunuva bitch. Or... well, you get the idea.

One peculiar thing I've run into is a handful of people on Reddit who claim to have bought a bunch of AMD stock on the cheap back during the financial crisis back in '08. Gotta say, I can't help but envy 'em just that tiny bit.

Image no longer available[/img]

Not too late to jump on that AMD stock train. I may have invested a bit myself!

On the other hand, my 3080 is finally on the way! 🙂 Super stoked!!

AAAAAAAAA that's amazing! How close is it now? Is it already there?! You gotta tell me how it performs, love!